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From: tonyw@ubvax.UUCP (Tony Wuersch)
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Re: Politics and Ethics--Socialism,
Message-ID: <428@ubvax.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 4-Feb-86 16:32:29 EST
Article-I.D.: ubvax.428
Posted: Tue Feb  4 16:32:29 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 10-Feb-86 22:03:28 EST
References: <486@whuts.UUCP> <101500008@uiucdcs> <902@cybvax0.UUCP> <411@ubvax.UUCP> <923@cybvax0.UUCP>
Reply-To: tonyw@ubvax.UUCP (Tony Wuersch)
Organization: Ungermann-Bass, Inc., Santa Clara, Ca.
Lines: 60

In article <923@cybvax0.UUCP> mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz) writes:
>In order to observe weak forces, one must control for stronger forces.

Now here, I think, is a real insight about democratic systems.  In the
modern era, where sparse population is not such a spur to democracy,
a democratic state has to be strong in two ways:  strong enough to
restrict its own power to the supervision and not the influence of
a democratic procedure, and strong enough to inhibit other forces
which would distort or undermine democratic processes.

But these are ideal guidelines which democratic states can only aspire
to, since they tend to interact with and contradict each other in real
operation.  As far as the US goes, my own complaint has not been with
its democratic systems (aside from distortions of voter eligibility),
but with the extremely narrow range of topics which are considered in
an American context as matters to be decided by democratic means.

Where economic matters are concerned, the relationships between crucial
economic institutions -- the federal executive, the Federal Reserve, major
corporations -- seem to me incredibly bureaucratic and insulated by
law and convention from any popular recall or revision.  The supposed
need for a separation of economic management from politics has always
seemed to me an excuse to keep voters uninformed and infantile where
US national economic issues are concerned.

Latin countries in debt have much closer relationships between government
economic policy and popular opinion than the US, even in semi-democracies
like Brazil.

>The wisdom of our system lies in the amplification of democratic force
>through a traditional bureaucratic system.  This allows us peak power
>while retaining responsiveness and subtlety of control.
>-- 
>
>Mike Huybensz		...decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!cybvax0!mrh

I tend to see the world today as in conflict involving bureaucracies,
economies, and democracies.  There are systems where the democracy is
an appendage to the bureaucracy, and some where the reverse also holds.
And there are systems where the economy comes out on top, for instance
Singapore and Hong Kong.

I'm a democrat, so I think the balance of power and the ability to
make enforceable decisions should rest in the democratic elements of
a national system.  But I see the states which have this capacity as
the Western European ones, and eventually some Latin American states.

As far as effective democracy goes, the US seems to me an overbuilt
economic and bureaucratic dinosaur in contrast.  A cult of national
destiny and leadership plus economic abandonment masked as laissez
faire theory isn't democratic, it's just indolent.  And the direction
of a resurgent militarized US isn't democratic either.

Western European nations may be a little slower, but they know that
no democratic society would vote for economic growth by wage cuts,
which is what the "democratic" US has "voted" for as its great plan
of economic recovery ?????

Tony Wuersch
{amdcad!cae780, amd}!ubvax!tonyw